Top 5 COVID-19 Tips for Employers with Breastfeeding Employees
Best practices to support working, breastfeeding parents during COVID-19 remote & re-entry to work
The onset of COVID-19 and a global pandemic has made employer support for working, feeding parents more important than ever.
Working parents are experiencing increased isolation and anxiety, lack of child care, and shifting schedules. Fears over contracting the virus and the ability to feed families are at an all time high, while productivity at work and confidence in employers’ trust is at a new low.
For new parents navigating feeding the transitions from hospital to home, and home to work, have always been challenging.
Women are twice as likely to quit breastfeeding when going back to work, and 43% of new mothers will leave their jobs in the first year back.
Now, in the current COVID-19 climate with added layers of disruption—remote work plans, return-to-work stressors, and very little certainty about the future—feeding both family and career is even harder.
Over 81% of working parents say their ability to engage at work has been negatively impacted and 14% are considering not returning post-pandemic.
Yet more parents than ever are committed to feeding: 95% of moms plan to breastfeed as long or longer than before COVID-19 and 27% are breastfeeding more during the pandemic according to a recent survey by Mamava and Medela.
Feeding families need employers to offer breastfeeding support.
We’ve put together an employer toolkit to help.
It’s filled with resources from experts in public health, law, and lactation to help keep your breastfeeding and pumping parents safe, connected, and engaged during the time of COVID-19 and beyond.
You’ll want to get all the insights by downloading it, but here’s a few key takeaways:
Prepare your pump rooms to reduce risk
COVID-19 can be transmitted though respiratory droplets in the air (most common) or through droplets that have landed on surfaces (less common). Therefore for parents pumping at work in shared spaces employers need to take extra precautions to make sure that employees are protected from transmission.
Pumping rooms need to have adequate supplies, clear procedures, regular deep-cleaning schedules, and sufficient ventilation. Must haves include: sink, hand soap, paper towels, disinfectant wipes, masks, adequate ventilation and proper refrigeration for milk storage. Touch-less options are optimal.
Ideally pumping rooms will be single occupancy. If this is not feasible pumping spots should be minimum 6 feet apart and user instructed to wear provided masks. Limited space? Employers can install plexiglass to separate pumping spaces into cubicles. Limited ventilation? Employers should consider installing a portable HEPA filter to reduce the possibility of virus in the air.
Prepare for extra time (for pumping and cleaning)
Employers need to be understanding that pumping at work takes time, and in the age of COVID-19, it will take even more time. The goal should be for companies and nursing moms to strike a balance between having enough room availability to accommodate everyone who needs to pump and maximizing the cleanliness of the pumping space(s).
Regular cleaning and attention to infection control will minimize the chance that SARS-CoV-2, or any other virus, can spread from person to person, even if they are not together in the space at the same time. Masks and strict hand-washing before and after pumping are important measures to minimize the chance of transmission. For shared surfaces such as table-top and chairs, disinfectant wipes should be made available and used by every user before and after pumping. Allow 10 minutes between sessions for extra ventilation.
Know your legal obligations
What breastfeeding mothers most need from their employers is time—and the support to use it without fear as-needed and space that conveys respect (clean and private).
Legal Rights for breastfeeding families include:
Break Time for Nursing Mothers - Core law requiring as-needed time, and a clean space that is private and free-from intrusion
Pregnancy Discrimination Act (Title VII) - Same flexibility that others have to address their needs during the workday
State and Local Laws - Break time and space provisions and often reasonable accommodation provisions
During the pandemic, demand for isolated space may make it more challenging to provide the room that people need and pumping employees may need more time. Make sure you have a functioning accommodations policy and well communicated responsibilities. If a worker needed to request WFH who would they ask? If more room was needed, who is responsible?
4. Get creative with your solutions
Flexibility and creative solutions are key right now. Best practice, for all workers, not just breastfeeding employees, is to identify a process to request continued remote work or work from home (full time or part time). Many employees will need it to protect themselves or family members, and a process reduces risk. It’s also important to remain mindful of remote workers over time, since they tend to get overlooked for promotions and lack engagement in company culture - especially entry level employees.
Coordinate extra time to pump and considering shifting schedules to limit exposure and reduce peak hours. Consider working with other employers to pool resources. Or find new spaces: Reasonable accommodation process is adaptable—an interactive process designed to meet the needs of the worker and allow her to keep productive.
Give your working parents a community
Right now, more than most things, working parents need community.
They need to be connected to other parents navigating the ups and downs of nursing, pumping, and parenting in a pandemic. Nothing matters so much as a kind word from a fellow feeding mother in the middle of the night.
pumpspotting at work’s platform was designed with community at the core, with a virtual space to talk to other working parents—inside the company and out—to make the pumping less lonely and the journey more connected.
Sign up here for our free employer toolkit to get access to the full webinar, downloadable resources, and a special offer for our pumpspotting at work platform.
Insights provided by Dr. Elizabeth Egan, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics (Infectious Diseases) and of Microbology and Immunology, Stanford University, Jessica Lee, Staff Attorney at the Center for WorkLife Law, and pumpspotting CEO Amy VanHaren.
About us:
pumpspotting is an app for parents and employers––a breastfeeding benefits solutions designed to keep working mothers fulfilled, understood and engaged. Learn more about how we can help through our program pumpspotting at work.